Mother’s Day

Otherwise affable director Garry Marshall continues his assault on minor holidays with Mother’s Day, which certainly isn’t a proper way to show maternal appreciation.

This ensemble melodrama follows the same formula as New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day, with its intertwining stories of three generations trying to put their lives together or their relationships in order on the titular day.

In this case, the primary characters include Sandy (Jennifer Aniston), a recent divorcee struggling with depression and child-support issues involving her brash ex-husband (Timothy Olyphant); Jesse (Kate Hudson), an artist whose husband (Aasif Mandvi) is of Indian origin and whose sister (Sarah Chalke) is a lesbian, neither of which has been revealed to her parents; Miranda (Julia Roberts), a home-shopping mogul who harbors a secret about her past; and Bradley (Jason Sudeikis), a widower adjusting to life as a single dad after his military wife was killed during an overseas deployment.

The film strains to be progressive and trendy yet feels stale and out of touch. It’s difficult to pick out which subplot is the most grating, but let’s go with one involving Jesse’s parents, a couple of hick Texans who are shocked when they pop in to see their two adult daughters, only to find that one of them is married to an Indian man and the other is a lesbian. That awkwardness is handled in about the most tasteless way possible.

From there, the screenplay aggressively tries to jerk tears at every opportunity by peddling cheap platitudes and sappy contrivances.

The women in the film certainly are meant to be sympathetic — all they’re missing is halos above their heads — but there’s not much depth or complexity to any of them. Most of the men are relegated to plot devices who are various degrees of sad, desperate or clueless.

Yet despite a strong cast, such amusing moments are sporadic in a film overflowing with stereotypes. It might have been salvaged with some realistic grounding instead of its existence in an idealistic fantasy world.

One brief highlight comes when Sudeikis’ attempt to rap karaoke to a Digital Underground classic ends badly. It’s about the only loose end that isn’t tied up with a bow.

Rated PG-13, 118 minutes.